Deviant behavior abound in the Andy Warhol produced warped black comedy about a penny-pinching suburban housewife who rents out rooms to girls who agree to kill people(or dogs, if the job calls for it)! The assignments can be a bit grotesque such as stabbing a retired cop's beloved pooch, a crying baby,crushing the legs of an illegal who pushed a guitarist into a moving subway train resulting in dismemberment, suffocating an autistic child, etc.
I think one has to be in a particular mindset to watch a mother chunk her baby out an apartment window just to save cash on paying her hit woman while it splatters blood on a passersby as it hits the sidewalk below! Caroll Baker's character cares nothing about what her lodgers do except that she gets paid. Susan Tyrell steals the film as a pathetic wallflower, daughter-in-law to Baker, who seems to be the only one with any moral compass whatsoever. Perry King is a lech with no redeeming qualities, awaiting the call to kill the autistic child..he seems perfectly able to fulfill his task, but once it's go time, he weakens, perhaps showing that he isn't a completely cruel person, just more or less obnoxious. I think one must have an appreciation for this kind of demented humor as it features characters who are morally dubious. Stefani Casini(Suspiria)has a funny cameo as a hit woman who likes to ridicule and abuse Tyrell just for the hell of it, and removes a victim's finger so she can stuff it in Baker's ketchup bottle! The film also features two sisters, Glenda and Marsha(Geraldine Smith & Maria Smith), who like to play kinky sex games when they aren't mutilating dogs for an easily agitated client(Brigid Berlin)with uncontrollable body gas. Glenda is a pyromaniac who sets fire to a theater-house(killing 14 people!)and a car the sisters steal. Caroll also performs electrolysis treatments(hair removal)in her home and must contend with an unhinged cop always calling(or stopping by the house)to demand she supply him with killers to arrest after a homicide as a means to keep him happy! I think BAD will be accepted more by fans of trash who enjoy stuff directed by John Waters, where characters show a tendency to be psychotic in a cold-blooded manner, with little conscience or guilt for their actions. We see an ugly side to people who wish to be rid of annoyances which leave them unhappy..so miserable they will have people kill for them in order to do so. The humor is performed straight, unlike something you might see in a Water's film, but it doesn't make the acts presented any less shocking(if anything seeing a woman toss her child out a window to it's death with little expression or concern is even more shocking and potent than if it were Divine!).
I think one has to be in a particular mindset to watch a mother chunk her baby out an apartment window just to save cash on paying her hit woman while it splatters blood on a passersby as it hits the sidewalk below! Caroll Baker's character cares nothing about what her lodgers do except that she gets paid. Susan Tyrell steals the film as a pathetic wallflower, daughter-in-law to Baker, who seems to be the only one with any moral compass whatsoever. Perry King is a lech with no redeeming qualities, awaiting the call to kill the autistic child..he seems perfectly able to fulfill his task, but once it's go time, he weakens, perhaps showing that he isn't a completely cruel person, just more or less obnoxious. I think one must have an appreciation for this kind of demented humor as it features characters who are morally dubious. Stefani Casini(Suspiria)has a funny cameo as a hit woman who likes to ridicule and abuse Tyrell just for the hell of it, and removes a victim's finger so she can stuff it in Baker's ketchup bottle! The film also features two sisters, Glenda and Marsha(Geraldine Smith & Maria Smith), who like to play kinky sex games when they aren't mutilating dogs for an easily agitated client(Brigid Berlin)with uncontrollable body gas. Glenda is a pyromaniac who sets fire to a theater-house(killing 14 people!)and a car the sisters steal. Caroll also performs electrolysis treatments(hair removal)in her home and must contend with an unhinged cop always calling(or stopping by the house)to demand she supply him with killers to arrest after a homicide as a means to keep him happy! I think BAD will be accepted more by fans of trash who enjoy stuff directed by John Waters, where characters show a tendency to be psychotic in a cold-blooded manner, with little conscience or guilt for their actions. We see an ugly side to people who wish to be rid of annoyances which leave them unhappy..so miserable they will have people kill for them in order to do so. The humor is performed straight, unlike something you might see in a Water's film, but it doesn't make the acts presented any less shocking(if anything seeing a woman toss her child out a window to it's death with little expression or concern is even more shocking and potent than if it were Divine!).